Health Law: Broad Practice on the Cutting Edge

As a healthcare lawyer and the current Chair of the New York State Bar Association Health Law Section, I am frequently called upon to define the practice of health law. Sometimes it comes in the form of a client or colleague who knows nothing about health law, but has a problem involving a healthcare provider or payer.  Other times, it involves someone sophisticated enough to know that the healthcare world has its own set of rules that may or may not reflect common sense and standard practice in other industries.  But either way, I will get some form of the question, “So what does a health lawyer do?”

And the problem is that there is no short answer, because health law encompasses almost all the traditional legal disciplines, and a few unique ones.  In general, the Venn diagram of health law includes three big circles:  corporate law, litigation, and, perhaps most importantly, regulatory law.  But each includes unique subdisciplines.  While corporate law certainly includes traditional mergers and acquisitions and contracting expertise, it requires a knowledge of federal and state laws governing self-referral that have structural implications (perhaps most significantly the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute).  While litigation includes many of the same activities as a standard commercial litigation practice, it also tends to have a strong administrative component, with subspecialties focusing on the False Claims Act, Medicare and Medicaid audits and hearings, professional discipline, and maybe even medical malpractice.  And regulatory law is the glue that holds it all together, informing everything else in this highly regulated industry, with its own subspecialties that run the gamut from general counsel-type services to full-fledged lobbying.

That is indeed one of the major characteristics of all the specialties within a health law practice – an awareness of and willingness to work with government in every transaction.  The other common factor comes with working in an industry that occupies an increasingly central role in the state, national and world economies.  Healthcare issues inform many business decisions, and most political and policy discussions, and tend to affect the average person on an extremely personal level.  As a result, healthcare lawyers often wrestle with the most significant issues occupying the public’s awareness.  An M&A lawyer working on the purchase of one furniture manufacturer by another probably will probably not get a lot of media attention, but a health lawyers working on the merger of two local health systems certainly will.

The New York State Bar Association Health Law Section strives to serve all of its members within this context, primarily through a robust system of committees that attempts to encompass the entire range of health lawyer interests.  For the litigators, we have a Litigation Committee, a Payment, Enforcement and Compliance Committee, and a Professional Discipline Committee.  For the corporate lawyers, we have a slew of committees based on the type of entities you serve, including a Providers Committee, and Long Term Care Committee, and a Medical Research and Biotechnology Committee.  For members more squarely in the regulatory space we have committees on E-Health and Information Systems, Health Care Ethics, and Public Health.  And this only scratches the surface.  If you are a health lawyer, you will find something of interest.  And by working with and learning about other health lawyers, you too will be better able to answer the question, “So what does a health lawyer do?”